Anne Akiko Meyers, Los Angeles Master Chorale & Grant Gershon - Mysterium (EP) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Superstar violinist Anne Akiko Meyers’ imagination and ingenuity knows no bounds. Her idea to persuade leading living composer Morten Lauridsen to transform his choral masterpiece, O Magnum Mysterium, into a work for violin and choir is a masterstroke. Teaming up with conductor Grant Gershon – who first collaborated with Anne as chamber musicians over 40 years ago – and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, for whom Lauridsen was their first Composer in Residence, Anne rounds out this digital EP with three other arrangements for violin and chorus of ever-popular works by J. S. Bach. The result is gold dust for the holiday season.

Anne Akiko Meyers is one of the world’s most esteemed violinists and has been described as “a musical wizard, with astonishing access to every kind of expressive color” (San Diego Union-Tribune).

After the sensational world premiere of Fandango by Arturo Márquez with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2021, Anne’s 2022-23 season includes performances of the work at Walt Disney Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City for the 50th Anniversary of the Festival Internacional Cervantino, as well as appearances with the Detroit, Nashville, Princeton, San Diego, San Jose, and Tucson Symphony Orchestras. In November, she returns to the Kennedy Center to premiere Michael Daugherty’s Blue Electra, a work about Amelia Earhart, with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Anne has inspired today’s leading composers to create new violin repertoire and premiered new music with symphony orchestras globally. She has worked closely with Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Michael Daugherty, Jennifer Higdon, Morten Lauridsen, Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Márquez, Arvo Pärt, Gene Pritsker, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Somei Satoh, and Adam Schoenberg, among others.

Anne is one of today’s most prolific recording artists, having recently released Shining Night, her 40th album, and is a staple of streaming platforms and classical radio stations. Her recording of Somei Satoh’s Birds in Warped Time II was used by architect Michael Arad for his design submission which became The World Trade Center Memorial in lower Manhattan. She has appeared twice on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, CBS Sunday Morning, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Morning Edition, and Great Performances honoring John Williams.

Anne was born in San Diego and studied at the Colburn School of Performing Arts and the Juilliard School with legendary teacher Dorothy DeLay. She has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Colburn School of Music. Anne performs on the Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, dated 1741, considered by many to be the finest sounding violin in existence and endorses Larsen Strings.

Grammy® Award-winning conductor Grant Gershon recently celebrated his 20th Anniversary as Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Los Angeles Master Chorale and his 15th season as Resident Conductor at LA Opera. Gershon has led world premieres of major works by John Adams, Billy Childs, Morten Lauridsen, Steve Reich, Ellen Reid, Ricky Ian Gordon and countless others. He has recently appeared with the LA Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the National Symphony. In 2019, Gershon and the Master Chorale were invited to open the Salzburg Festival with Peter Sellars’ groundbreaking staged version of Orlando di Lasso’s Renaissance masterpiece Lagrime di San Pietro. With the Chorale, Gershon has also appeared recently at the Barbican Centre in London, the Philharmonie in Paris, and the Auckland International Festival. He won the 2022 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance as Chorus Director of Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel.

This recording is truly a labor of love and of deep affection. There is a fantastic synchronicity and a “coming together of different worlds” with the myriad connections that this project engendered.

First off, I’ve known Anne Akiko Meyers since we first played chamber music together— when she was an 11-year-old wunderkind here in Los Angeles. Over the years Anne and I have separately (up until now!) had the honor of working closely with the great Morten Lauridsen, who was the LA, Master Chorale’s first composer-in-residence. It’s therefore an absolute delight to introduce this new version of Morten’s classic work, O Magnum Mysterium, which combines Anne’s profound understanding of this music with our singers’ long history with this masterwork.

It’s especially satisfying to marry the mysticism of Lauridsen’s music with the spirituality of three beloved works from the cantatas of J.S. Bach, also in newly created arrangements. We recorded this music onstage in the glowing acoustics of Frank Gehry’s masterpiece, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where we were able to utilize the 6,100 pipes of that hall’s iconic organ. We hope that you will savor the fruits of this extraordinary project! (Grant Gershon, August 2022)

My first piece as the Los Angeles Master chorale’s composer-in-residence was O Magnum Mysterium, premiered in 1994. It has become a signature piece for the Chorale, constantly performed throughout the world and recorded on well over a hundred CDs. Anne loved the a cappella motet and asked me to provide a new version of it for violin/ orchestra or violin/piano, both of which she has superbly recorded. This instrumental score retains the essence of the original choral version plus newly composed violinistic countermelodies to display Anne’s magnificent artistry.

Grant’s splendid idea to combine the solo violin part with his sensitive adjustments to the original choral score is heard here in its premiere recording by the Chorale and Anne, providing a new listening experience for this quiet song of profound inner joy, which celebrates the birth of Christ amongst the lowly animals of the manger. (Morten Lauridsen, Recipient, 2007 National Medal of Arts)

Tracklist:
1. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (Arr. for Violin and Chorus by Samuel Adler) (03:34)
2. Sheep May Safely Graze (Arr. for Violin and Chorus by Len Rhodes) (04:21)
3. Wachet Auf, Sleepers Wake (Arr. for Violin and Chorus by Len Rhodes) (04:19)
4. O Magnum Mysterium (Arr. for Violin and Chorus by Grant Gershon & Morten Lauridsen) (06:35)


Thanks to the Original customer!